The Sport of kings or mugs?

What is it about horse races like the Melbourne Cup (Australia), the Durban July (South Africa), the Grand National (England), the Kentucky Derby (America) etc. that drive normal, sane people into fits of madness once a year?

Is it the dressing-up, the drinking or the socialising that entices ordinary folk to place their hard-earned on, in the main, a shot in the dark?

What inflames their passion so when, for the other 364 days of the year, they could not care less about our equine friends?

All of the above is discussed in D.J. Taylor's new Novel Derby Day. Taylor, one of the finest, award-winning biographers of modern times (he wrote Orwell: The Life), has penned a Victorian mystery that comes to a head at one of the greatest British horse races of them all - the Derby

He utilises the race as a backdrop and includes a wide range of characters - villains, bookmakers, wives, mistresses, thieves, etc. - for whom the result means everything.

The race, held annually at Epsom Downs, is described by Taylor (in not so many words) as a day of Derby decadence. 

And so it is, that all the characters have their fortunes, one way or another, tied up in the performance of one horse, Tiberius.

Taylor has used outstanding imagery to bring to life this fast-moving tale and even if you don't like horse racing (which I don't); this novel offers so much more - especially to lovers of a ripping yarn.

It is impeccably written and extremely well researched and if you close your eyes you can actually picture yourself in one of the scenes.

This was, for me, one of those books I could not put down and is one of the best novels I have ever read.

It was long listed for the 2011 Man Booker Prize and it remains a mystery (apt, I suppose, as the book is described as a Victorian mystery) how it did not make the short list!

It is, like Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, a masterpiece and I give it 9.5/10.